Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government

14. Constitutions: State & Federal

A written constitution was an essential feature of the government created by the
Founding Fathers. The term "constitution" refers to the nature or manner in
which a society is organized and the principles by which governmental powers are
distributed. It is the fundamental law of a nation, and may be a single document, as in
the United States, or the totality of basic legislation, as in England. The Founders
preferred a written constitution, founded in the authority of the people, in order more
surely to limit the power of the governors and protect the rights of the governed.

"Aware of the tendency of power to degenerate into abuse, the worthies of our
country have secured its independence by the establishment of a Constitution and form of
government for our nation, calculated to prevent as well as to correct abuse."
--Thomas Jefferson to Washington Tammany Society, 1809. ME 16:346

"It is true, we are as yet secured against [tyrannical laws] by the spirit of the
times... But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it
government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up?
Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt,
our people careless." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, Q.XVII, 1782. ME 2:224

"[To establish republican government, it is necessary to] effect a constitution in
which the will of the nation shall have an organized control over the actions of its
government, and its citizens a regular protection against its oppressions." --Thomas
Jefferson to Lafayette, 1816. ME 19:240

"[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of
government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become
nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion,
on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be
construed into an intention to surrender those rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on
Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME 2:178

"No interests are dearer to men than those which ought to be secured to them by
their form of government, and none deserve better of them than those who contribute to the
amelioration of that form." --Thomas Jefferson to M. Ruelle, 1809. ME 12:256

"A permanent constitution must be the work of quiet, leisure, much inquiry, and
great deliberation." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:483

"Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion,
yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the
people. They fix, too, for the people the principles of their political creed."
--Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:325

"I am persuaded no Constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for
extensive empire and self-government." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1809. ME
12:277

"[Ours is] a constitution of government destined to be the primitive and precious
model of what is to change the condition of man over the globe." --Thomas Jefferson
to Edward Livingston, 1824. ME 16:26

14.1 Constitutional Authority

"The authority of [the] people [is] a necessary foundation for a
constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824. ME 16:28

"Every... constitution [should] lay its foundation in the authority of the
nation... [If] no special authority [is] delegated [to the legislative body] by the people
to form a permanent constitution over which their successors in legislation should have no
powers of alteration,... although... they [give] to this act the title of a constitution,
yet it could be no more than an act of legislation subject, as their other acts [are], to
alteration by their successors." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824.
ME 16:27

"I question if any Congress (much less all successively) can have self-denial
enough to go through with this distribution [of executive business, so that Congress
itself should meddle only with what should be legislative.] The distribution, then, should
be imposed on them." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1786. ME 6:9

"All of the States [except] Virginia... had... delineated [the] unceded portions
of right and [the] fences against wrong which they meant to exempt from the powers of
their governors, in instruments called declarations of rights and constitutions. And as
they did this by conventions which they appointed for the express purpose of reserving
these rights and of delegating others to their ordinary legislative, executive, and
judiciary bodies, none of the reserved rights can be touched without resorting to the
people to appoint another convention for the express purpose of permitting it. Where the
constitutions then have been so formed by conventions named for this express purpose, they
are fixed and unalterable but by a convention or other body to be specially
authorized." --Thomas Jefferson to Noah Webster, 1790. ME 8:113

14.2 Foundational Principles

"The foundation on which all [our State constitutions] are built is the natural
equality of man, the denial of every pre-eminence but that annexed to legal office and
particularly the denial of a pre-eminence by birth." --Thomas Jefferson to George
Washington, 1784. ME 4:217, Papers 7:106

"The basis of our constitution is in opposition to the principle of equal
political rights [if it refuses] to all but freeholders any participation in the natural
right of self-government... And even among our citizens who participate in the
representative privilege, the equality of political rights is entirely prostrated by our
constitution... [if it gives] to every citizen of [one county] as much weight in the
government as to twenty-two equal citizens in [another]... If these fundamental principles
are of no importance in actual government, then no principles are important, and it is as
well to rely on the dispositions of an administration, good or evil, as on the provisions
of a constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824. ME 16:28

"The true principles of our Constitution... are wisely opposed to all
perpetuations of power, and to every practice which may lead to hereditary
establishments." --Thomas Jefferson to Messrs. Bloodgood and Hammond, 1809. ME 12:318

14.3 Constitutional Limitations

"I consider the foundation of the [Federal] Constitution as laid on this ground:
That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." [10th
Amendment] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the
powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer
susceptible of any definition." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791.
ME 3:146

"I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, and never saw it till after it
was established. On receiving it, I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of
provision for... an express reservation to the States of all rights not specifically
granted to the Union." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:325

"Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are
unauthoritative, void, and of no force." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky
Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:380

"[An] act of the Congress of the United States... which assumes powers... not
delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force."
--Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:383

"To keep in all things within the pale of our constitutional powers... [is one of]
the landmarks by which we are to guide ourselves in all our proceedings." --Thomas
Jefferson: 2nd Annual Message, 1802. ME 3:348

"[We considered the Alien and Sedition] acts as so palpably against the
Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration that that compact is not meant to
be the measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will proceed in the
exercise over these States of all powers whatsoever... [We] view this as seizing the
rights of the States and consolidating them in the hands of the General Government, with a
power assumed to bind the States, not merely as [to] cases made federal (casus foederis),
but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, but by others against
their consent... This would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen and live
under one deriving its powers from its own will and not from our authority." --Thomas
Jefferson, Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:390

14.4 Legitimate Restrictions on Power

"It [is] inconsistent with the principles of civil liberty, and contrary to the
natural rights of the other members of the society, that any body of men therein should
have authority to enlarge their own powers, prerogatives or emoluments without
restraint." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Allowance Bill, 1778. Papers 2:231

"The Legislature... can neither pass a law that my head shall be stricken from my
body without trial, nor my freehold taken from me without indemnification, and when not
necessary for a public use." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1911. ME 19:181

"Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves." --Thomas
Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776 Papers 1:546

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to
others." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782. ME 2:221

"No man on earth has more implicit confidence than myself in the integrity and
discretion of [the confidential officers of the government, who are the choice of the
people themselves]... But is confidence or discretion, or is strict limit, the
principle of our Constitution?" --Thomas Jefferson to Jedidiah Morse, 1822. ME 15:359

"Had [the election of 1800] terminated in the elevation of Mr. Burr, every
republican would, I am sure, have acquiesced in a moment; because, however it might have
been variant from the intentions of the voters, yet it would have been agreeable to the
Constitution... But in the event of an usurpation, I was decidedly with those who were
determined not to permit it. Because that precedent once set, would be artificially
reproduced, and end soon in a dictator." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas M'Kean, 1801.
ME 10:221

"The Tory principle of passive obedience [seeks to] become entirely triumphant
under the new-fangled names of confidence and responsibility." --Thomas
Jefferson to Robert Livingston, 1799. ME 10:118

"It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to
silence our fears for the safety of our rights... Confidence is everywhere the parent of
despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy
and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are
obliged to trust with power... Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which,
and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard
of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the
Constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:388

"Let the honest advocate of confidence read the Alien and Sedition Acts and say if
the Constitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the government it created, and
whether we should be wise in destroying those limits." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft
Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:389

14.5 Constitutional Control

"Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers
of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the
perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the
trust. Whether our Constitution has hit on the exact degree of control necessary, is yet
under experiment." --Thomas Jefferson to M. van der Kemp, 1812. ME 13:136

"I sincerely wish... we could see our government so secured as to depend less on
the character of the person in whose hands it is trusted. Bad men will sometimes get in
and with such an immense patronage may make great progress in corrupting the public mind
and principles. This is a subject with which wisdom and patriotism should be
occupied." --Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson, 1801. ME 10:237

14.6 Needed Revisions

"Smaller objections [I have to the new Constitution] are [the omission of] the
appeals on matters of fact as well as law, and the binding of all persons, Legislative,
Executive, and Judiciary, by oath to maintain that constitution." --Thomas Jefferson
to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:390

"I apprehend... that the total abandonment of the principle of rotation in the
offices of President and Senator will end in abuse." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward
Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81